Social Menu

Search form

Data Protection: Students

How we use your personal information

This statement explains how Gonville & Caius College (“the College”, “we” and “our”) handles and uses information we collect about those applicants we make an offer of study to, and students once they join the College (“you” and “your”). In broad terms, we use your personal information to manage the ongoing relationship between the College and you as part of our lifelong community of scholars. This includes guiding and supporting your academic studies, maintaining and reviewing your academic progress and pastoral welfare, reviewing your financial commitments to the College and (if you live in College accommodation) managing our relationship with you as a resident.

When changes are made to this statement, we will publish the updated version on our website and notify you by other communications channels as we deem appropriate or necessary.

The controller for your personal information is the Gonville & Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TA. The person responsible for data protection at the time of issue, and the person who is responsible for monitoring compliance with relevant legislation in relation to the protection of personal information, is the Senior Bursar.

The normal legal basis for processing your personal information is that it is necessary in the performance of one or more contracts with us (including preparing to become a student and member of the College, the expectations on both sides during your course of studies and any related accommodation contract). We have commitments to other external bodies (particularly the University of Cambridge) as part of those contracts, and we outline below (see “How we share your personal information") how and when we ordinarily will share your personal information. For some specific purposes, we may rely on another legal basis, including where we are required for compliance with a legal obligation (e.g. financial records, equal opportunities monitoring), or where we believe it is in our legitimate interest to do so (e.g. to enable your access to external services). You may ask us for further information on these matters at any time if you have specific concerns.

How your information is used by the College

We collect and process your personal information, as specified below, for a number of purposes, including:

A. maintaining your personal details, including ensuring effective communications with you
B. maintaining a formal record of your academic progress and achievements at the College, the University of Cambridge and elsewhere
C. maintaining a formal record of your other engagements with and achievements at the College, the University of Cambridge and elsewhere
D. maintaining a record, where appropriate, of any particular personal needs you require to participate fully in College and University life (including any support needs that are, or have been, provided by the College or the University during your course of studies), as well as information about your general health and wellbeing
E. maintaining financial records relating to your studies, your funding and other financial support arrangements
F. provision of references to third parties
G. maintaining a record of your behaviour and in particular where there has been concerns or complaints raised about you
H. maintaining a record of any complaints you make to the College and their outcomes
I. maintaining a record of dates of residence in Cambridge in order to fulfil University residence requirements
J. maintaining data to enable the College and the University to produce statistics and research for internal and statutory reporting purposes

Further details are provided in the Annex. If you have concerns or queries about any of these purposes, please contact us at the address given below, or speak to the Tutorial Manager, Mrs Yvonne Holmes 01223 332440.

We also operate CCTV on our Old Courts, Harvey Court, sports and residential sites which will capture footage. Our CCTV policy can be viewed here.

Please note that if you engage with us for any other purpose (e.g. you work for us, or volunteer for us), there are additional data protection statements that you will be provided with for those other purposes, usually at the first point of engagement.

How long we keep your information for

The Annex outlines specific retention periods for certain categories of information: most of these are determined by legal requirements relating to that specific information.

Where no specific retention period is noted, at the point of graduation (or when you go out of residence for the final time), the College reduces your personal information to a subset of information so that the College can retain a sufficient record of your academic achievements for references and other related purposes, and your time at the College. Access to these archived records is restricted to College academic staff with supervisory responsibilities. The archived record would retain:

Name, address, date of birth

Application form to the College

School Examination results

Examination results and reports relating to your studies from when you were a student

Membership of clubs and societies while you were a student

Details of any prizes and grants awarded

Degree result

Finally, we strongly encourage all of our students to remain in touch with the College after they leave and, for that reason, we transfer a subset of this information to our Development Office. You are encouraged to read our separate statement about personal information for alumni, which covers your ongoing lifelong membership of the College.

How we share your personal information

Within the College

We share the following information with relevant people within the College:

College Nurse: Names, contact details, allergies and medical conditions as notified by you.

Library: names, email addresses.

IT Department: names, email addresses.

Junior Common Room and Middle Common Room: names, courses, genders, email addresses, and whether international or visiting students (this last is for mentoring purposes).

Development Office: names, contact details, and details from your matriculation record, so that they can establish contact (once you have graduated, the Development Office will handle your data in line with the Data Protection Statement here: https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/alumni/development-campaign-data-protection-st... ). The Development Office will not use contact details for next of kin which have been provided for emergency use.

Chapel: names, contact details (for choir members).

Again, this is considered necessary for the College to operate smoothly but you can request a greater level of privacy by contacting the Senior Bursar. See the Annex to this statement.

The College also takes photographs of its students, either individually and/or as a group in a matriculation and graduation photographs. These are widely used within the College and may be on public display, including potentially on social media (permission will be sought to use photographs of individuals or small groups).

Otherwise, the College restricts the sharing of your personal information within the College: all staff with access to students’ personal data are regularly reminded of their responsibility to protect data and will not share it except where this is necessary for smooth running of the College.

With the University

By being a member of a College and registering for a course of study, you are automatically a member of the University of Cambridge. The academic and student support arrangements between the College and the University of Cambridge are complex and varied depending on your course and level of study. Information relating to you (and particularly your academic studies) is shared routinely and often with the University, and the University and its partners (including the College) have a data sharing agreement to govern such interactions and information transfers in both directions, as well as a shared student record system and database.

The personal information shared with the University will include only that which is necessary for you to undertake and complete your studies and your examinations, and in addition will include any information necessary for the College to fulfill its obligations and agreements with the University about the shared University community (including sufficient information for the University to record and collate instances of student behaviour or complaints across all of the Colleges and the University). Where possible, the College will notify you of its intention to share such data in advance.

The College routinely shares information with, and receives information from, where appropriate:

the Cambridge City Council and other local authorities (to provide evidence of any rights to or exemptions from local services and taxes, including electoral registration and council tax)

your funding providers or sponsors, as agreed with them and/or you, including the Student Loans Company

Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (in relation to your application, offer and requirements to meet any offer of study)

We may also be subject to a legal requirement (with or without your consent) to share your personal information with some government agencies under special circumstances (e.g. relating to crime or health and safety), such as the police or security services or other statutory authorities with investigatory powers. Where possible, the College will notify you of its intention to share such information in advance.

We will normally provide confirmation of your qualifications and other academic references to a prospective employer or financial sponsor if it is reasonably clear that it would be in your interests to do so, and we have made reasonable checks to ensure the information is being requested for that purpose.

We may also provide personal information to agencies and trusted advisers in order to receive professional advice or guidance in relation to a number of matters (examples of such advice include legal and audit services, fee status verification services, intercollegiate agreement services) or to provide services to you through a third party on our behalf. In such circumstances, data sharing agreements are in place to ensure your personal information is not retained by them for longer than necessary or otherwise shared more widely.

The College may share information with organisations overseas as part of arrangements related to your membership of the College (e.g. field trip, student exchange programme, an overseas funding provider). In most cases, this will be related to the operation of a contract.

Publication of your personal information

We would not normally make your personal information publicly available without your consent.

We would encourage you to be careful when sharing personal information about other students in public social media sites and other similar environments.

Please also note the University’s people search function may also be widened to be accessible to the general public by changing the settings at http://www.lookup.cam.ac.uk/self: its default setting is otherwise access to all members of the University and all Colleges: we share this because we believe it helps significantly in building community relations and networks and helps others get in touch with you easily.

Your rights

You have the right: to ask us for access to, rectification or erasure of your personal information; to restrict processing (pending correction or deletion); to object to communications; and to ask for the transfer of your personal information electronically to a third party (data portability).

Some of these rights are not automatic, and we reserve the right to discuss with you why we might not comply with a request from you to exercise them.

If you have questions or concerns about your personal information, or how it used, please speak to the relevant College staff in the first instance. If you need further guidance, please contact the Senior Bursar using the details given above.

If you remain unhappy with the way your information is being handled, or with the response received from us, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF.

Last updated: Tutorial Department/Records Manager, 8 February 2018

Annex

We collect and process your personal information, as specified below, for a number of purposes, including:

We will assume that you have obtained permission from your next-of-kin or emergency contact for us to hold their information for that purpose.

B. maintaining a formal record of your academic progress and achievements at the College, the University of Cambridge and elsewhere:

We retain personal information (provided by you or by the University of Cambridge, or created by us), including:

your application details, our assessment of your application and the details of any offer(s) of study we have made

records of your academic provision from the College (including supervisions, College examinations and other academic support)

matriculation and graduation details and records of your academic qualifications (including those prior to becoming a member of the College)

other details of your academic progress or achievements (e.g. College or University awards or prizes)

Where an award or prize is provided by an external sponsor, we will normally share details about you and your academic performance with them. We may publish a record of awards, prizes and other achievements in the Caian, our yearly report.

C. maintaining a formal record of your other engagements with and achievements at the College, the University of Cambridge and elsewhere:

We retain personal information (provided by you or by the University of Cambridge, or created by us), including:

records of your membership of College committees, the Junior Common Room (JCR), Middle Common Room (MCR) and College clubs and societies

awards, prizes and achievements in College or University-related activities (e.g music, arts, sports etc.) We may publish a record of such awards, prizes and achievements, including activities in College committees, the JCR and MCR and College Clubs and societies, in the Caian, our yearly report.

D. maintaining a record, where appropriate, of any particular personal needs you require to participate fully in College and University life (including any support needs that are, or have been, provided by the College or the University during your course of studies), as well as information about your general health and wellbeing:

We retain personal information (provided by you or by the University of Cambridge, or created by us), including:

details of any disability, illness, and any consequent learning support, social support or other support needs

details of any serious risks affecting you (e.g. severe allergies)

arrangements agreed with you to manage your use of College and University facilities (e.g. computing services, sports facilities, libraries, accommodation, learning spaces), including any special requirements that may be linked to your health or religious beliefs

other information to support your health, safety and wellbeing

We may also retain copies of statements from professional medical advisers, provided either by you or directly to us.

All personal information will be managed to preserve confidentiality: all College staff with access to students’ personal data are regularly reminded of their responsibility to protect data and will not share it except where this is necessary for smooth running of the College. We recognise that much of the personal information outlined above is of a sensitive nature and requires a high level of discretion. Wherever possible, we will discuss and agree with you in advance with whom and when we share this information, but reserve the right to disclose information to others in matters relating to significant risks to your health and safety or the health and safety of others.

This information is normally retained until one year after you complete your studies.

The College nurse observes strict confidentiality in line with her professional code of practice and does not share personal information with others, including members or staff of the College, without student consent. Disclosure without consent would occur only in exceptional circumstances such as when the interests of student or public safety and/or public protection override the need for confidentiality.

Please note that where you are referred to services not offered directly by the College (e.g., the University Counselling Centre and the University’s Disability Resource Centre), these support services will have their own data protection statement (or privacy notice) and we advise you pay close attention to these.

We retain personal information (provided by you or by the University of Cambridge, or created by us), including:

records of your sources of funding support and tuition fee liabilities and, where relevant, records of your accommodation liabilities and other related charges (e.g. [kitchen fixed charge]), as well as what monies are to be, and have been, collected by the College on behalf of itself and the University

records of any financial support agreed by the University and/or the College (including Cambridge Bursaries, other studentships or awards, additional discretionary funding, benefits or waivers approved by the College)

where you reside in accommodation owned or managed by the College, copies of any accommodation contract(s)

where appropriate, your banking details in order to conduct financial transactions, and records of such transactions

records of your College financial account, including balance and transactions

copies of any correspondence with you about any of the above matters

Where this information includes the personal information of others (e.g. parental income evidence), we will assume that you have their permission to provide it to us for our purposes.This information is normally retained until seven years after you complete your studies or any outstanding issues, such as unpaid accounts, are resolved.

F. provision of references to third parties:

In addition to the information above (and particularly your achievements in B and C above), we retain personal information (provided by you or created by us), including:

records of your advisers, including where relevant your Tutor, Director of Studies and other nominated College personnel who provided you with personal support

G. maintaining a record of your behaviour and in particular where there has been concerns or complaints raised about you:

We retain personal information (provided by you or by others, or created by us), including:

details of any investigations undertaken by the College into your conduct or behaviour (e.g. disciplinary investigations, fitness to study investigations, complaints made against you)

a record, including the final outcome, of any investigation of the University into your conduct or behaviour

The College has several complaints procedures, relating to different matters, which you are expected to familiarise yourself with and, in all cases, personal information will be managed in line with our confidentiality policy. We recognise that investigations may include information or statements of either a sensitive or disputed nature, and that such records require a high level of confidentiality. Wherever possible, we will discuss and agree with you in advance with whom and when we share this information, but reserve the right to disclose information to others in matters relating to significant risks to your health and safety or the health and safety of others.

This information is normally retained until a year after you finish your studies.

H. maintaining a record of any complaints you make to the College and their outcomes:

We retain personal information (provided by you or by others, or created by us), including:

details of any complaints you have made to the College and their outcomes, where these have been taken through the College complaints procedure.

This information is normally retained until three years after the resolution of any complaint.

I. maintaining data to enable the College and the University to produce statistics and research for internal and statutory reporting purposes.

It is difficult to provide a comprehensive list, but we retain personal information (provided by you), including:

information relating to “equal opportunities” (e.g. nationality, ethnicity, religious and other beliefs, gender, sexuality, age) in order to fulfill legal requirements of the College or the University

information relating to known relationships with other members (past or present) of the University of Cambridge or any of the Colleges

information relating to your rights to live, work and study in the United Kingdom

any criminal record that may affect your status as a student of the University or the College

If you have concerns or queries about any of these purposes, please contact us, or speak to your Tutor or the Senior Bursar.